About the Certificate
Designed for PK-12 teachers who want to enhance their mentoring and coaching abilities, NLU's Coaching and Mentoring Certificate explores best practices of mentoring and coaching and will help you define or strengthen your leadership style.
This evidence-based and standards-driven certificate will prepare you to take on more significant school-level leadership role and equip you with the mentoring and coaching tools you need to support teacher development, school improvement, and student achievement.
What You'll Learn
NLU’s Coaching and Mentoring certificate is designed around the National Teacher Leader Standards from the National Network of State Teachers of the Year (NNSTOY). The courses will teach you to provide the instructional leadership needed to support your colleagues’ growth, their students’ successes, and deliver on shared values of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Build the growth-oriented leadership competencies to:
- Articulate and demonstrate outstanding instructional practice and strengthen their sense of efficacy.
- Identify concrete steps to help teachers improve their teaching.
- Support the retention of high-quality teachers.
- Foster a collaborative professional learning community.
- Partner with administration to ensure effective communication.
Where Can I Apply the Course Credit?
A research-based induction and training opportunity, the Coaching and Mentoring certificate is a first step into school-level leadership. You can continue to build your mentoring and coaching capacity and position yourself for a formal leadership role and career advancement by applying the graduate course credit you earn in the Coaching and Mentoring Certificate toward NLU endorsement and degree programs.
Endorsements
Complete the Coaching and Mentoring certificate and be well on your way toward earning an IL endorsement.
- Teacher Leader: Three certificate courses (LDR 511, LDR 523, and LDR 531) count toward the Teacher Leader endorsement.
Graduate Degrees
All three courses in the Coaching and Mentoring certificate are transferrable to NLU’s M.Ed. or Ed.S. in Teacher Leadership degree programs.
Program Format and Course Information
Through a rich online learning experience that includes virtual community sessions, group discussions, practice coaching cycles, case studies, guided practice, feedback, and self-reflection, you will evolve your approach to mentoring and coaching in a supportive community of practice. This three-course, eight-semester hour (SH) certificate includes the following courses, which may be taken together or individually:
- LDR 511: Emerging as a Teacher Leader
This course introduces candidates to concepts, practices, and standards associated with professional service in schools as a teacher leader. They assess their own preparation, strengths, areas for cultivation, and context-based opportunities to grow as teacher leaders.
- LDR 523: Mentoring and Coaching Fellow Teachers
This course examines how coaching and mentoring will improve the performance of teachers, students, schools, and the profession by treating coaching not as “fixing,” but as joining with peers as fellow learners. Embracing the complexities of being both coach and colleague, candidates practice mentoring and coaching competencies, including examining beliefs and values that affect coaching, establishing trust, selecting a coaching model appropriate to the situation, and determining shared goals for a coaching relationship- all within a real-world school context.
- LDR 531: Leading Teacher Development and Student Learning
This course prepares candidates for their roles in the professional development of fellow teachers in the group setting. Candidates study principles of adult education, including those that help learning transfer to and grow teachers’ daily practice as they explore the skills needed to successfully make the transition from supporting the learning of young students to working with one’s peers as well as administrators.
After successfully completing your final course, you will receive a certificate to demonstrate your professional qualification and the credit will appear on your NLU transcript.
Tuition and Fees
For more information about the Coaching and Mentoring Certificate, including program details, tuition and fees, and why the program might be right for you, please contact our enrollment team.
Information and Registration
To register, please complete NLU’s Admissions Application.
You may start this certificate program any term—however, we recommend you begin in the summer, fall, or winter term. Each course is 3 SH and offered fully online.
If you're ready to see when your courses will be offered, visit NLU’s Course Schedule Search to start planning ahead.
For questions about the Coaching and Mentoring Certificate or the registration process, please contact: Marci Mazza, mmazza@nl.edu.
